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Daddy Day Care
Daddy Day Care is a 2003 American family comedy film starring Eddie Murphyand co-starring Jeff Garlin, Steve Zahn, Regina King, and Anjelica Huston. Written by Geoff Rodkey and directed by Steve Carr, the film was released in theaters on May 9, 2003. It was produced by Revolution Studios and released by Columbia Pictures. The film grossed $164 million worldwide on a budget of $60 million. It was Murphy and Carr's second collaboration after Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001). Plot Charles "Charlie" Hinton is a food products marketing executive whose wife Kim has just gone back to work as a lawyer. They enroll their son Ben, in Chapman Academy, an expensive and very academic preschool headed by a woman named Gwenyth Harridan. Soon after, Charlie and his best friend, Phillip "Phil" Ryerson, are laid off due to children not liking healthy cereal. After over a month of failed attempts to find a new job, Charlie is forced to pull Ben out of Chapman due to its cost and decides to open his very own preschool in his home with the help of Phil, calling it Daddy Day Care. At first, the local parents are suspicious of men wanting to work with kids, but as Daddy Day Care is cheaper and more child-based than Chapman Academy, the latter begins to lose students. Daddy Day Care opens and Charlie and Phil each begin taking care of several kids, though things don't go smoothly at first due to the kids having several issues and being prone to causing chaos through the house. Fearing Daddy Day Care will close Chapman Academy, Harridan attempts to shut down Daddy Day Care by notifying child services that Charlie and Phil are not following the relevant regulations. Dan Kubitz, director of child services, notifies them of the codes that they need to fix, which Charlie and Phil quickly correct. Mr. Kubitz then informs Phil and Charlie that they need another employee to keep an appropriate ratio of children to caregivers. Luckily, Marvin, a nerdy former co-worker, had dropped by and after seeing how good he is at entertaining the children, Phil and Charlie ask him about joining. Marvin is unsure at first, but then finds himself falling for Kelli, the single mother of Dylan (one of the kids in the daycare) and agrees. Daddy Day Care grows in popularity and attracts more children and parents, much to Harridan's jealousy and anger. Charlie, Phil and Marvin each begin enjoying running Daddy Day Care and taking care of the kids, while bonding with them and helping them overcome their issues. Later, Mr. Kubitz tells them they have too many kids for Daddy Day Care to legally continue to operate at Charlie's residence. Charlie refuses to kick any kids out and decides to instead simply move Daddy Day Care to a bigger space. Marvin tells Charlie and Phil about an available building with potential, but they do not have the money to buy it. They hold a fundraising children's festival called "Rock for Daddy Day Care", which Harridan finds out about. No longer able to compete fairly, she and her reluctant assistant Jenny infiltrate the festival and sabotage everything by deflating a moon bounce, releasing animals from the petting zoo, replacing the face paint with glue, putting cockroaches in the food, and bribing the groundskeeper into turning on the park sprinklers. As a result, Daddy Day Care does not even raise close to enough money. Shortly after, Charlie and Phil are offered their old jobs back, accepting Harridan's offer to take the kids back to Chapman at a lower cost. Marvin, heartbroken by the closing of the day care, declines Charlie and Phil's offer to be on board their marketing panel. Back at the advertising agency, Charlie and Phil's first assignment is to market a sugary breakfast cereal to children. While listening to a cereal pitch, Charlie realizes the impact Daddy Day Care has had on Ben and the other children and starts to question the morality of his assignment. He quits his job at the advertising agency and convinces Phil to quit with him. He and Phil pick up Marvin before heading off to Chapman Academy. Charlie confronts Harridan, claiming she doesn't care about what children want. Listing examples of how he has helped the children improve, Charlie successfully convinces the children's parents to bring their children back to Daddy Day Care, making it a raging success, and forcing Chapman Academy into bankruptcy. Six months later, Marvin begins a relationship with Kelli, Harridan is demoted to a crossing guard, and Jenny takes a new job at Daddy Day Care's new facility. The film ends as Harridan is ambushed by a swarm of bees (due to a flower Crispin gave her that she put onto her vest), and tries to shoo them away by waving her stop sign at them, accidentally causing a traffic jam around her in the process. Cast * Eddie Murphy as Charles "Charlie" Hinton * Jeff Garlin as Phillip "Phil" Ryerson * Steve Zahn as Marvin * Regina King as Kimberly "Kim" Hinton * Anjelica Huston as Miss Gwyneth Harridan * Khamani Griffin as Benjamin "Ben" Hinton * Kevin Nealon as Bruce * Jonathan Katz as Daniel "Dan" Kubitz * Lacey Chabert as Jenny * Max Burkholder as Maxwell "Max" Ryerson * Jimmy Bennett as Flash/Tony * Leila Arcieri as Kelli * Shane Baumel as Crispin * Elle Fanning as Jamie * Felix Achille as Dylan * Telise Galanis as Juliette * Hailey Noelle Johnson as Becca * Siobhan Fallon Hogan as Peggy * Arthur Young as Nicky * Wallace Langham as Jim Fields * Lisa Edelstein as Bruce's wife/Crispin's mother * Mark Griffin as Steve * Cheap Trick appear as themselves at the Rock for Daddy Day Care charity event